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randomwriteronline · 11 months ago

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"I am getting married."

Ferfax hummed: "To whom?"

"Vastus of the Jungle Tribe."

This time, the elder actually raised her eyes from the sheet of parchment she had been busy reading to pivot them right at him with a flabbergasted look.

Tarix continued to stand, unbothered.

"Their first Glatorian?" she sputtered - just to make sure she had heard correctly.

He nodded.

He watched her put her head in her hands.

She sighed heavily: "Must you give me a headache too, now?"

"It's just a marriage."

"Just a marriage - you know you can't get married if you can't share a house," Ferfax bit back: "And I'll be dead before I send you to Tesara, and I'll bet you Racans will be of the same opinion about sending their best Glatorian to live in Tajun!"

"If you make me an ambassador to the Lebori I have a right to a home in Tesara," Tarix argued with a shrug.

"I told you I'm not sending you there!"

"I'm not talking about living in it. Just having it."

"What would the point of having one if you'll never use it? And how is that supposed to solve the problem, anyhow?"

"Nobody ever said it can't be someone else's house. Like Vastus's."

The elder glared at him. He held her gaze.

At last, she gave a long, suffering groan, head heavily settling on her palms: "I'll have to discuss this with Racans."

"Thank you, chief."

"But I'm not marrying you."

"Fair enough, chief."

"You'll have to find somebody else to do the parchmentwork for you."

"Will do, chief."

"And quit that!"

Tarix ducked under the bone stylus thrown at him with a cackle.

"How's your calligraphy?" Vastus asked in a staggeringly casual manner as he pulled off his armor.

Strakk eyed him carefully: "Legible," he replied.

"If I get you the material, would you be keen on marrying me and Tarix sometime in the next month or so?"

The Koniri blinked.

"Why me?" was his argument. "Shouldn't your elder do it?"

"Racans said we've caused enough from trouble for them and Ferfax already with the whole housing situation," the other shrugged. He picked a small bucket filled with sand, moving to the other corner of the room so it wouldn't mix with the melted snow his fellow Glatorian was cleaning his fur with, and dumped the whole thing over himself. "So they don't want anything else to do with this. And since you're already here, might as well ask."

His opponent crossed his legs and hummed loudly as he massaged his mechanical chin, deep in thought.

He leaned his head to the side: "It would require me to be very flexible, but I could make myself available, yes. Of course, since it's still precious time stolen away from my life, I'd probably deserve some kind of compensation..."

"Enough to buy the stuff," Vastus cut him off.

"Excuse me! I'm over here, offering you my services-"

"You're accepting to provide a service," the Lebori corrected with a chuckle as Strakk rolled his eyes and waved at his semantics: "That's quite different."

"It doesn't change anything! I'll have to get the stuff, wait for the right date, come over to wherever you are, write it all twice - marriage is no little thing to officiate!" the Koniri rebuked, giving himself plenty of airs while his opponent shook the sand in excess off of his body. "I will be laboring on it for weeks! I demand proper payment!"

"Your proper payment is me letting you win those reparations we'll have to give Iconox, how's that sound?"

The Koniri gave an exaggerated huff and pulled back some of his dark fur to show a large, very recently formed bruise on his arm: "You call this 'letting me win'?"

The woman poofed the last of his bath out of his feathers: "I could have done worse." he grinned.

He gave a hissing laugh when the other Glatorian scoffed theatrically.

"Alright, fine, I'll get you a wed-gift as payment. What do you need?"

"Money."

"You know that's not how it works. Here - think of something you need, and that will surely save you money and trouble."

The addition did prompt Strakk to ponder if there was something like that in his list of necessities for a few more seconds.

His gaze fell on his axe, running a very quick check on it with his good eye - since the prosthetic one, despite being immune to snow burn, wasn't as good at telling details apart.

He hummed at last: "I'm not planning on replacing my weapon anytime soon, and I've got polishing material of my own already - but I've got an inkling that sharpening the blade with just a stone is degrading it little by little. You wouldn't happen to have...?"

"Powder and oil, got it." Vastus nodded while collecting the last few things before he could journey back to Tesara. "I'll fetch you some."

"And it better be good quality stuff!" the Koniri called after him as he left room, waving a wet rag threateningly in his direction: "Don't go be a cheapskate! You hear me? I'm the man who'll marry you, you better show some gratitude!"

The Lebori laughed at him and waved, very grateful indeed.

"Do you have plans?"

"What kind?"

"In general."

"What do you need to know that for?"

"To check if you'd have the time to spectate my wedding."

Ackar turned to him with a weird look.

"You're getting married?" he asked.

Tarix nodded: "To Vastus."

"Yes, I imagined - what I'm asking is, why?"

At that, the Gaquri shrugged, eyes growing whistful and mouth tugging itself into the shape of a small smile: "Love?" he offered.

He jabbed the Tapyri when he whistled sarcastically.

"You've been courting out of love for a long while too. Can't you just keep doing that instead?" the other insisted. "It's not like you'd get much else out of marriage that you don't aready have... I'm not even sure you can get married - with the whole sharing-a-house part."

His friend smirked, chewing the stem of his pipe: "We already found a loophole," he gloated, "And that's why our elders got mad at us and refuse to have anything else to do with this."

"Figures..."

A few cries rang out: Malum barked something at a group of rookies in a strict Tapyri dialect, and Ackar hollered right back at him in tone to shut whatever he was trying to start down before anybody got hurt. He got back a furious glare, but nothing else. Both Glatorian watched the younger warrior stalk back to an armored dummy in a corner of the arena from their seats.

They noticed how he reached under his armor to rub at his chest.

His prosthetic ribcage must have been giving him grief again.

"Seriously," the Gaquri registered lazily as the words slithered in his ear with a whisper: "Why marriage?"

He swatted at the other's nose: "Now you're getting on my nerves."

"I just want to understand! It's such an old-fashioned thing," the Tapyri defended himself.

That made Tarix chuckle: "Old-fashioned? Go look in a mirror, that'll give you something old-fashioned," he mocked his friend.

But Ackar remained serious: "Is it because you want children? That used to be the reason. But in a time like this-"

"Of course we're not having one now, we're gonna wait until the situation's a little more peaceful! Why don't you stick yourself to my ass while you're at it yapping about how I should live my life? Great Beings' sake, you're turning into a nagging old man. Next question's if we're sure about this because we're still too young and stupid to make our own choices?"

"The point is that you aren't young," his friend bit back: "And things don't look like they'll be getting better anytime soon."

The Gaquri glared at him, but said nothing to counter him, only puffing nothing out of his pipe twice in a pensive manner.

He shook his head, sighing deeply: "Listen, I don't know if we have a reason and I don't care. Maybe we were just raised like that, maybe it's because we do hope to have a kid sooner rather than late, maybe it's something else... Point is - would you spectate us?"

Ackar leaned back in his seat, silent for a moment.

At last, he smiled: "I'd love to."

The other veteran grinned back at him: "There," he huffed playfully, "Was that so hard? Now tell me what you need for your wed-gift."

"Nothing."

"That's not how this works and you know it, now tell me."

"I can't think of anything."

"Make an effort."

"Hm, nope. It's a barren wasteland in here."

"Get fucked, then!"

"I'll try to."

Tarix laughed so hard that the faulty spring in his knee almost burst out through his prosthetic flesh.

"What's that?" Gresh asked.

Vastus continued to work the clear amber resin without looking at him: "Did you grind the flour like I told you?"

"I did. What is that?"

"Then go make some dough for the dumplings."

His nephew huffed loudly, purposefully blowing on his ear to bother him; his concentration remained unbroken as he carefully plucked a down feather from his arm to press it into the small band.

He covered it with another layer of malleable matter while the younger Glatorian fetched a little water to mix in with the ground up bugs, listening to him bristle quietly all peeved about his unanswered question as he definitely pressed the heel of his hand into the slowly solidifying solution far too forcefully, as he always did when he was mad about something.

"You're gonna ruin your wrist like that," he told him distractedly.

"No I'm not."

"Yes you are."

"Maybe I wouldn't if I had some help."

A little smile tugged at Vastus's lips as he stood up: "You'll make a poor Glatorian if you're defeated by dough," he laughed softly, fetching some wood.

"That's not what I meant!" the younger Lebori snapped.

His aunt gave a hissing giggle that made him puff out his feathers angrily, like a Gravel Hawk chick.

He side-eyed his mentor while he tossed the kindling under a pot, which he poured enough oil into to fully fry something small enough; after placing whatever it was he'd made on the small flammable pile so that the heat would harden the resin into some sort of gemstone, he threw in a few lit matches to spark up the fire, fanning it until he found himself satisfied with its lively state.

He stretched back up with a terrible crackling of his spine prosthesis, yawned, and sauntered over to the small table his nephew was still digging his hand way too hard into the soft somewhat viscous mass.

Gresh handed it over with a pout when Vastus gestured at him, rolling his eyes in annoyance but quickly going back to watching his aunt's expert movements carefully - as he always tended to do, since he was a visual learner first and foremost, and he still strived to avoid making mistakes.

After a few minutes, the dough had been successfully domesticated.

Vastus pried a chunk out of it and held it up: his nephew was quick to snatch it and roll it into a ball before squishing it into a flat circle, laying it back on the table before doing the same to each subsequent piece he was presented with.

"It's my pawn of affection for Tarix," the veteran Glatorian finally saw it fit to explain.

Gresh furrowed his brows a moment before understanding: "So you're getting married?" he asked, turning to the other with eyes wide and feathers fanned out in genuine surprise.

The woman nodded.

"When?" the rookie inquired.

"When we have time."

"Can I be there?"

"I don't know if you'll have time, but of course."

"And what's it going to be like? The wedding, I mean."

"Oh, it'll be a practical thing. We'll exchange pawns, Strakk'll write it down, and then we'll sign all that."

The Koniri's name caused his nephew to wrinkle his nose: "Why him?"

"Because he's got good handwriting," Vastus smirked, "And he was the nearest person I knew who I could ask to do this for us."

"Ackar wasn't there?"

"Nope, but he's our spectator anyways. Besides! Strakk isn't that bad. You're just hung up on the fact he's mean."

Gresh grumbled something, crushing a ball of dough into a wobbly mess. His mentor nudged him gently: he quickly rolled the whole thing again and properly flattened it.

"And is that going to be it?" he asked after a moment.

"The wedding? Yes, of course. Should there be something else?"

"Racans said theirs was followed by a party. They had a big supper and a dance and all."

The older Glatorian sighed: "Yes, that used to be a thing - but those were different times, kid," he explained: "We don't have the sort of time or resources for something like that nowadays. A wedding like that is a big ordeal, and we've got to work, you know? The easiest way to get the four of us together already is pick up a match at the same arena and get everything done in-between rounds. There's really no space for big celebrations."

"But you could still have a special supper," Gresh insisted. "Even if it's just you and me. Or you and Tarix... Are you moving to Tajun?"

"Nah, we found a way." his hand descended on to of his nephew's head, scratching at it gently to bother him as he bristled and whined. "I can't leave a little thing like you all on tir own, can I?"

The rookie swatted at him: "I'm not a 'ti' anymore! I'm an adult!"

"Are you? Last time I checked you were a few centuries and a good bunch of centimeters short of outgrowing childhood..."

"I'm not short!"

"Can you even reach the top of the pantry?"

Vastus laughed his hiccuping cackle as he watched the younger Lebori storm off to climb all the way to the highest shelf, at last throwing the filling for their dumplings at his aunt's head.

"Oop, there they come," Strakk warned him.

Tarix lifted his head and the stylus from the second piece of parchment to see Ackar limp in, hands on the lower half of his back and a pained grimace on his face. He smiled as Vastus appeared next to him, looking a little less worse for wear: he excitedly waved his hand at his soon-to-be spouse, who answered him in kind.

"I'm not built for riding Sand Stalkers anymore," the Tapyri grumbled.

"Here I thought I was the one who needed a prosthetic spine," the woman quipped back at him: "How did you even manage to get hurt? We would have gone faster if we'd walked! It took us ages getting those grains here from Vulcanus."

His partner clicked his tongue and shook his head: "Should've asked for some painkilling ointments for your wed-gift."

"You know those get lost in the mucus and don't work," Ackar argued.

"Then should've asked for a few medicinal sghitts."

"Ough, don't even mention those - I've already got Perditus reeking of them bad enough he can't wash the smell off most of the time, I'd rather not live with a permanently plugged nose."

"Are you going to cut the small talk or would you like to postpone the wedding altogether?" Strakk cut in, his overly polite tone dripping with sarcasm. He was fanning the ink on both parchments with his hand so it would dry faster, sitting astride on a bench. "I get it that the rest of you have today free, but I'll be up against Kiina in about twenty minutes and I'm not getting my pay docked because I was late getting the two of you married."

"Your pay's not getting docked," Vastus called his bluff.

"But it could!"

"Fine, fine, get on with it then."

The Koniri bowed his head with as much annoyingly unnecessary deference as possible to express his thanks and shooed off the groom from his seat so that he would go stand over with his wife.

He then stretched his back as Ackar stood beside him, groaned a little, and hunched over to the two almost identical pieces of documentation he'd prepared: with one hand he picked a parchment at random, while the other went to cover his organic eye so that he wouldn't get a headache as he tried to read.

Finally he staged a couple coughs to clear his throat.

"Before tomorrow, possibly," Tarix teased him.

"Shut up."

There were a few snorts.

Strakk squinted a one-eyed glare at the three of them, but let the whole thing slide with an exaggerated sigh to start reading aloud.

"With this document, Koniri Strakk of Iconox records the lawful marriage of Lebori Vastus of Tesara and Gaquri Tarix of Tajun, on... What's the current date?" he interrupted himself. Ackar leaned in to whisper it to him: he wrote it down. "Alright, thanks - now where was I - bababa, in the Glatorian arena of Tajun, as spectated by Tapyri Ackar of Vulcanus. So I declare. Now offer the pawns..."

While he handed over the stylus to the Tapyri so that he could sign his participation on both parchments in advance, the spouses dug into their pockets for a moment, each one of their hands emerging at last wrapped around something.

The exchanged a few glances to determine an order between them: in the end, Tarix went first.

"I offer you a pawn of my affection," he recited; his arm bent forward mechanically, and his fingers lifted to reveal a snail shell with a long, careful cut in which he'd wedged one of his scales so it couldn't fall off, and a metal wire around it. "For the honor of being your husband."

"I offer you a pawn of my affection," Vastus echoed him in both words and motions, presenting him instead with an open ring of amber encasing a feather within: "For the honor of being your wife."

Strakk shifted his hand over his other eye to get a better look at the small charms. The other two Glatorian helpfully leaned their palms a little closer to his face so that he could more accurately take note of their details.

The Koniri hummed and jotted down a quick description of both, planning to copy it on the second parchment later.

"And do you accept?" he asked the spouses as he finished writing.

"I accept, and take you as my wife," Tarix declared, placing his palm over the ring.

"I accept, and take you as my husband," Vastus declared, putting her hand over the shell.

The bone stylus scratched at the levigated Sun Serpent skin, leaving on it deep brown letters that seeped into the shallow trenches dug into the parchment very slowly.

Satisfied with his work, Strakk waved his hand and decided there was no point in keeping up any pomp: "So on and so forth, lawfully wedded, so I declare, exchange pawns and a kiss and congrats on the marriage."

"Aren't you the voice of romance," Ackar snickered.

The Koniri grinned as he speedily copied everything onto the second document: "Why, thank you."

The newlyweds ignored them, having tuned them out already. Their fingers tightened almost in unison, linking their hands together; they leaned forward to press their noses against one another for a few interminable seconds, making the flat silhouettes of their faces adhere all but perfectly like two halves of a whole.

The kiss their mouths shared instead was a small quick thing, barely held long enough to be seen at all. It still lingered in the wide smiles that squinted their eyes into slits after they came apart.

Ackar's few polite claps made them snicker: "May you have much happiness and healthy children!" the Tapyri wished them heartily.

"Aaah, thank you, friend," Tarix laughed.

Vastus sighed: "We'll need those, I think."

"And I'll need you to sign these over here," Strakk piped up, waving his stylus at the bride: "Your husband already got it done while we were waiting for you."

The Lebori's feathers vibrated in pure joy for a moment, causing his silhouette to be shaken by long waves.

While he leaned down to leave his signature, Tarix pulled a satchel from one of his pockets and offered the wed-gift to Ackar with a grin: "Here's a little show of gratitude for your trouble."

"Spectating you was no trouble at all, but I'll take that," his friend thanked him. His eyes lit up as he recognized the rattling sound of the pouch's contents when he shook it: "Nacre snails?" he asked, flummoxed. "How many even - a dozen or so? They must have cost you a fortune."

"Not as much as you'd think. Kiina's little brother's real good at finding them, and he makes a good price."

"Berix?"

"He's a good kid."

"I know that. I didn't know he was a hunter, too."

"Well now, hunter might be too generous--"

"And before you mention it," Vastus interrupted them as he too pulled out a present for their officiator, "Here's the gratitude I promised you, for your troubles."

"Oooh, thank you," Strakk howled as he eagerly wrapped his hands around his offering. "Right on time too, I'll bet you that hellish girl is going to find a way to chip my axe today... Alright, sweethearts - and Ackar, I'm entrusting you the result of my hard work for your elderssince I'm afraid I'll have to take my leave now. I've got a Gaquri to fight, you know - business as usual."

In one fell swoop he stood up from the bench, closed his ink bottle, whisked it away with his stylus, made them both disappear with a slight of hand, and regaled the three Glatorian with a deep overly flourished bow.

"Much happiness and healthy children," he bid them goodbye, and with his axe in hand he disappeared into a corridor.

The others watched him go.

"Bet you a batch of Thornax Kiina's gonna wipe the floor with him."

"I HEARD YOU, TAPYRI!"

Ackar laughed loud enough for the whole arena to hear him as he followed him suit, waving at the married couple.

Tarix turned to his wife, the word dancing in his stomach like a fluttering sparrow: "Wanna go see 'em?" he offered, playing with the amber ring before slipping it on a finger, reveling in the sound it made against his scales. "Or do you want to visit your second house?"

Vastus snorted, carefully sliding the snail charm into a thin thread he tied around his neck, letting it dangle on his chest: "I'm afraid I don't have time for that. It's a long way to Tesara, you know..."

"All the more reason to stay."

"I already gave my word to the merchants we escorted earlier that I'd stick to them until we got to the village."

"Can't get in the way of your work, then. But in that case..." the Gaquri rummaged on his person for the third time. He handed his spouse a small, specially made sack giving off the distinctive scent of kelp jades - round sticky fruits produced by certain algae found in the watery caves of Tajun. "Have these - for our nephew. I bet he's mad he couldn't come. A little treat should cheer him up."

"Well, wouldn't you know?" his beloved mused as he took the food: "A week ago or so he was wondering why we wouldn't have any other celebration, like a special dinner..."

It would have been nice to eat together, the two of them thought; but some things just weren't possible in these times.

They sighed.

Suddenly, they realized they were still holding hands.

They made no motion to pull them away from one another. On the contrary, they just looked at them for a moment, small smiles growing larger on their faces, hearts beating a little faster with every passing second.

They met each other's eyes again.

"We're married," Tarix said, grinning wider.

"So we are," Vastus replied, eyes shining.

They giggled to themselves like little kids as they pressed their faces together in another nose-kiss, giddy with a certain euphoria they weren't sure they could compare to many other things in their lives; they kissed on the lips, once, twice, cackling softly, and they would have gone on much longer if Tarix's diaphragm hadn't started collapsing, and if Vastus's name hadn't echoed around the corridors to remind him they had to go.

#bionicle #vastus #tarix #strakk #ackar #gresh #random writing #my t4t couple of the century... wedding tiem :)#went a bit overboard thinking up a traditional agori marriage and whoops have all this cultural lore #its nothing fancy! very practical. they still get giddy bc my hubsand :DDD my wief :DDD #never mentioned it but gresh n vastus are Not related by blood btw theyve got a mentor-mentee thing going. and then it turned into fam

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